Saturday, December 23, 2006

U.S. Hispanic groups and activists on Thursday called for a moratorium on workplace raids to round up illegal immigrants, saying they were reminiscent of Nazi crackdowns on Jews in the 1930s. They accused the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement of “racial profiling,” or selective enforcement against Hispanics, for arresting 1,300 workers on immigration violations in December 12 raids at meatpacking plants in six states.

These activist groups jumped the shark by equating enforcing existing laws with Hitler’s Germany. Do these activists realize that they’ve just marginalized themselves? Something that I’m wondering is whether this fits into the legislation that Pelosi and Conyers plan on introducing on CAIR’s behalf.

“We are demanding an end to these immigration raids, where they are targeting brown faces. That is major, major racial profiling, and that cannot be tolerated,” said Rosa Rosales, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, at a news conference. “This unfortunately reminds me of when Hitler began rounding up the Jews for no reason and locking them up,” Democratic Party activist Carla Vela said. “Now they’re coming for the Latinos, who will they come for next?”

Saying that ICE uses racial profiling in making the raids is stating the obvious. Should ICE profile white-skinned Europeans in looking for illegal aliens? Or should they target African-Americans? Or should they just use random searches like they use in airports so that Hispanics aren’t targeted? What tools should ICE use in going after illegal aliens? Or are these groups asking that the borders not be enforced at all?

I’ll be interested in seeing how the 110th Congress will handle this issue. It’ll tell us alot about how serious they are on law enforcement and national security issues. If the Democrats in Congress include Hispanics in their legislation against profiling of all sorts. If they are, then it’s important that Republicans step forward to say that that isn’t acceptable. It’s important that Republicans filibuster such legislation.